Yes. You are right. I am closed minded about accepting cultural xenophobia.

Quote:

Originally Posted by chowner

So you are saying he's closed minded for following a principle that has been established world wide for centuries?

You are right he truly is the lazy one. Excuses me while I take your power knowledge and go learn north of 50 langue so I can communicate with all I may interact. Seems logical.

For centuries, mi amigo, the United States of America has been a cultural melting pot. A country of immigrants who bring elements of their countries of origin to the US - that includes their native languages. Should they be able to speak and understand basic English. Yes. Should they have to ONLY speak English once they get here. No. Anyone who has attempted to learn and apply a new language would understand the difficulties inherent in doing so. English is one of the more difficult languages to learn. English has become a sort of melting pot of languages itself, thanks to the cultural melting pot of the United States.

At no point did I call anyone lazy. BTW, while I am flattered that you think of me of some human Rosetta Stone, I don't speak Spanish as well you as you seem to give me credit for. Read? I do alright. Write? A bit more more of a challenge. Speak it? About as well as a child. I sound pretty dumb speaking it, but I can at least communicate enough to get my point across. Or to at least get the other person to speak English after I explain that I don't speak Spanish very well and don't understand him.

Learning another language is just as much about communication as it is about understanding another culture from a different perspective. Here in the good ol' US of A we seem to think the world revolves around English speaking Americans. It doesn't.

USA is more like a stew pot than a true melting pot. We lump everyone in but the ethnicities tend to keep their identity. Reference all the places with "Little-Italy", "China Town", "Little Havana", etc. We are very quick to identify ourselves as "some ethnic group-American" such as Irish-American, African-American. We do not really combine into one blended culture very well.

[QUOTE=mrblaine;12000822]
How about this, if you had the Jeep Spirit, you wouldn't abuse the rest of us trying to enjoy a nice day out wheeling by bringing your brokeass broken down junkyard crap out to play where it can't handle it?[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=JeepForum123;13578398]you all have nice rigs, stop being f****** a**holes.[/QUOTE]

USA is more like a stew pot than a true melting pot. We lump everyone in but the ethnicities tend to keep their identity. Reference all the places with "Little-Italy", "China Town", "Little Havana", etc. We are very quick to identify ourselves as "some ethnic group-American" such as Irish-American, African-American. We do not really combine into one blended culture very well.

Frankly, I think we'd lose a bit of our own national identity if we did blend the culture so seamlessly. I love that we have such cultural diversity in this country, and I think there is nothing wrong with having a distinct identity. People may identify themselves and African-American, or Irish-American, but the core of it is that we are all proud to be US Citizens. (no, I will not fall in the trap of calling us Americans )

Never been to Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean Islands, or any other Spanish speaking country (well, except the Philippines, but they speak Tagalog), so I have no need to speak that branch of language. I do however know bits of some dialects of Arabic so I can converse with the local peoples while on patrols and say "put the bomb down or we'll shoot", and I know a little Thai, Hindi, French, and Tagalog as well and I am working on learning various dialects of Chinese.

That said, the international language of business has been, more or less, widely accepted to be English.

Last I checked though, the US Constitution provided the basis to pretty much do whatever and speak however you want so long as it doesn't infringe on the rights of others. But it is up to each person to make sure that others can understand them and vise versa. So if the dominant language in the country you are in is French, then you should know some French. If the dominant language is English then you should be able to converse in English (even a little is better than none).

It is like that in just about every country I've been too. The major cities have several different languages that are spoken (English usually among them), but you go into the rural areas or small countries, then you will find nothing but the native language.

My $0.02.

__________________
Future Electrical and Computer Engineer - University of Colorado - Boulder | Bringing Logic to JeepForum since 2010!
"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid. — Albert Einstein

IMO, a person who refuses to learn another language out of principle, is closed minded.

i have to agree with this. if you don't learn a language like, say, spanish, because you don't live near people who speak spanish and therefore wouldn't have a need to speak it, that's fine. but i'm sure that english won't be the absolute only language there. if you live in say, vermont, would it not benefit you to learn some french seeing as how quebec is just north of you? but to say you won't learn at least a bit of another language, whichever one it is, simply because you don't think you should have to understand another language is just sad. i'm not saying you shouldn't learn english if you come to the US, because you should. but think about it- in what way could learning another language possibly hurt you? (yes, this goes both ways)

__________________
1998 TJ 4.0 Sahara, D30/D35, 33x12.50x15 Mud Kings, HF 8k winch, snorkel. "Military Edition"
BLS33: "Granted in general I am all for kicking babies, but in such an instance it would seem unfair, I would kick the parents first."